Quarry, next morning
Major Brennecke was still looking like shit, not only was he still trying to survive on a diet of bread rolls, cigarettes and coffee, he also had realized the great responsibility which had been thrust upon him whether he wanted it or not. That he was still holding up was an equal testament to his need not to let his people down, sheer adrenaline and caffeine.
He was still using his office for the staff meetings too-but that would change shortly.
"Ok people, let`s get this done. How is the situation?"
Captain Leibnitz was the first one to give his report:
"So far we managed to hold the line without undue losses. Morale in the companies on the wall is good and we have not lost any important hardware yet. As long as our supply lasts and the enemy does not do something totally unexpected we can continue for quite a while."
"Supply will hold up at present. As we cannot supply any passing trains or other army units we can plunder the depot to our hearts content. The only exception to that is the ammo for the 10.5 guns-we got about 200 or so shells left and that`s it. Food will last for some more weeks if needs be, but we are low on Diesel. Even if the pumps would have held up better we could not repeat yesterday's performance more than once-after that we would be fresh out of Diesel." Hermann Walter had taken over the supplies which mashed well with his day-today job of organizing the Railroad depots warehouse.
"I have finished moving the aid station and sickbay to the blasting materials storage rooms." Dr. Klaus Reichert could at any time taken the part of Santa on Christmas eve-overweight with bushy beard and a shock of unruly hair he had no rank in the Landwehr but was important nether the less. Presently he would have been a frustrated Santa as he was unhappy.
"I still have to protest this move. The room is not much better than a cave-it is barely adequately ventilated, damp, cold and there is only one way in. It is not a good place to treat the patients and.."
"Doctor-we have heard all heard about this already-several times in fact. But if our lines are breached this is the safest place for the noncombatants and the injured, so bear with it"
"Yes sir. Despite the move we have no further deaths-at present we have 22 injured in the sickbay and 5 of them should be fit for light duty soon"
"That is…"
The undulating call of the siren ripped everybody of their seats before conscious though applied-there was no need as everybody knew what was required well by now.
A couple of minutes later they saw that the Beastmen were again trying something new. Instead of advancing in orderly blocks or as a dense group they had tried to space themselves, leaving 2 or 3 meters between each member of the warherd. They also alternated fast sprints with taking cover behind whatever feature offered itself-mostly the fallen of earlier assaults. The Chaos Children were not used to this and it showed. While they were no longer so easy to take down in large groups with a single machine guns burst there were also less of them. Taking cover and standing up quickly again was not easy for beings with hooves and coordination between sprinters and those who took cover lacked. Still it was quite an accomplishment by the Beastmen and it made the Landwehr officers ill at ease.
Captain Albers watched his men firing shot after shot into the attackers but could also see and hear the swearing from those who missed. Before this was mostly unknown, the Beasts were packed so densely that it was hard not to hit-this time the Riflemen had to aim correctly, to lead their targets and to stay cool instead of just banging away. If they would have been under fire themselves that would have been disastrous, but even so the beastmen managed to close with far less losses than before.
The Landwehr officer was wondering what the beasts would do for the S-Wire when one of the screamers which held the quadmounts attention so far flew by. Like its name suggested it screamed-but it was not the scream of hunger and the joy of the hunt. Fine wisps of smoke from several parts of its body told the story-the heavy machine guns had failed to hit anything vital, but the phosphorus from the tracer rounds was burning the demon from the inside.
The sounds by the screamer contained such agony that Beasts and men were affected-but its fellows most of all. With a sound nobody later could describe all of them just vanished at the same time.
It took the Quadmounts no time at all to switch targets to the attacking horde. While it did not produce such a heinous carnage as in the first assaults they still managed to kill or subdue more than their fair share of the Beastmen.
This left the gap between the innermost redoubts-here the quadmounts could not reach the zone between the two redoubts. The lighter machine guns and the rifles killed many-but there were two beasts for every one which fell. Grabbing the bodies of the fallen from the ground and throwing them on the wire the Chaos Children finally had found a way across the best defense the humans had.
Climbing up the final meters of the slope they foremost thought in any of these beats was to close with the hated humans and to rip them apart in the hand-to hand fighting they excelled in.
The first to arrive at the Palisade with topped the wall was a huge minotaur-like Doombull. As it was below the angle that the humans could reach without exposing themselves he pulled himself up-and his head exploded like a dropped melon.
Presenting the Hammer he had just used to such effects to the heavens Valten stood up to his considerable height.
"Army of Sigmar-now is your time. Defend the walls and let none pass. Kill them all"
All along the line the Flagellants which had so far been left out of the fight filled the gaps between the riflemen. Attacking the Beastmen which tried to overcome the Palisade with whatever melee weapon they happened to own they were overmatched by the much stronger Chaos Children, but they did not need to win. They just needed to slow the assault and that they did ably enough. Paying for each second gained with limb and lives they gave the riflemen the time to shoot the beats off the walls one by one.
The design of the redoubts again proved itself when the MG3 machine guns were able to shoot parallel to the walls of the redoubts, enfilading the enemy. From the next redoubt the Landwehr could shoot the Beasts with impunity as long as they aimed below the Palisade.
A huge warheard had started the assault-one of Gareks best. Maybe a quarter of them had reached the Palisade-none came back.
Castle Wolfenfels, same Date
Master Hark was looking at a small pile of ashes. It was the remains of a roll of warding, the second he had to use on this day. Such rolls were normally as useful as they were rare as they had the power to break up nearly any spell thrown at the user of the roll.
Master Hark was not the best or brightest wizard there was and freely admitted as much. But whenever winter cloaked the land with its white death shroud and his services were rarely asked for he had set down and had performed the long and painstaking rituals with were needed to make one. As far as he was aware his predecessors had done the same thing for quite a while and the very remoteness of the Castle had meant that they were seldom needed, which led to quite a stock.
Some of his predecessors also had been more into stonework which might explain the many wards which protected this place. There was nothing outstandingly powerful, but there were a lot of them and so he had been able to thwart the ambitions of the Chaoas mages on the other side of the field.
He carefully warded himself before looking into the winds of magic again, the equivalent of a soldier peeking above the rim of a trench, and found nothing immediately dangerous, but the presence of something at the edge of his perception. Nothing aggressive, but not of this world-and it seemed quite busy.
Getting curious he ventured to the Donjon for a look.
Ernst Hermann was sitting in his room and was wiping down the parts of his G62 Rifle. It was pretty new and while it did not show any big problems it paid to be extra careful with a rifle not through the first two revisions or so when your life depended on it.
Even before the Weltensprung the lethality of the 5.56 mm ammo was debated at length with experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq pointing out that there should be better. Ever since coming to the Warhammer World the German armed forces found that there were enemies which needed considerably more killing than a normal human being. As there were no allies with which they had to coordinate themselves the Germans should have been able to settle that quickly, but now the search for the "ideal" solution slowed things down. Currently several rounds were tested, including a stronger caseless one, a 6.8 mm conventional and a 7 mm telescopic round. That was all fine and well-but for the future. For now German soldiers were issued the venerable G3 rifle-until the stocks ran out.
Making new ones was out of the question-the rifle was built for the manufacturing technologies of the late 40`s and would be far too expensive to exhume. As a "stopgap" Heckler&Koch had offered an upgunned version of their G36 rifle in 7,62mm. They modified it with a better heat management and the capability to use the G3 rifle mags plus different sights and so far the tests were running well.
The new ammo available included armor piercing as well as frangible rounds like the old Glaser slugs-especially the latter were extremely nasty. Containing nearly 100 small balls in each round they emptied the chest of a beastmen on a single hit or ripped off extremities.
The KSK officer was about to reassemble the rifle when a knock on the door interrupted. A footmen of the rifle company entered and after saluting: "Compliments from Sergeant Blascoviks and he would like you to come up on the Donjon. He also said that you can take your time"
"Thanks riflemen, I will come up. Dismissed"
Reassembling the rifle was done in under a minute and not much later the Officer was looking at the Chaos Camp through his binoculars. What he could see was that something was digging a ditch which ran at a 45 degree angle of the direct line. Whatever dug the ditch was good at it as the ditch was deep enough to hide them but it was progressing at speed.
"What are these assholes doing in Sigmar`s name? The ditch is not even going in our direction and the castle is on solid rock anyway. How can they hurt us?"
"This is right out of the manual "How to lay Siege to a fortress when you have a gun" Count. I bet this ditch will change course soon by 90 degrees-it will never be dug directly in our direction so we cannot shoot down it. The ditch will approach the Castle at a zick-zag course and will probably end in a bunker. There are two possible uses-bringing troops closer to the castle so we can only fire on them when they leave it-or bring an artillery piece in range of the walls so they can shoot a breach into it."
"I do not think they can send many troops down that ditch at one time-but it might help to mask an assault, especially at night"
"I think you are right Count-I would bet on the gun thing. On the other hand an assault by night could be nasty-we do not have too many starshells left."
"Can our redoubtable Lieutenant Alpers fly in more?"
"He already told us that there are few shells for our 60 mm mortar left-he has them in a bigger caliber, but that will not help us much. He told me he is working on something, but I have no idea what. He will also resupply us with ammo tomorrow but in a different way-he asked us to rig up a rope between the tower and one of the walls."
"I hope it will be less spectacular then his last performance."
"Me too, but he said he had rigged something that would make it easier-let`s see."
"Looks like we both place a great deal of faith in our pilot"
"Looks like he earned it"
"Aside from any assault from the ditch you said something about emplacing cannon at the end of the ditch-we should do something about it. Any ideas?"
"The traditional way to counter this is either high angle arty fire-we do not have it or a counterditch-this we cannot dig as we are on bedrock."
"Ah, we should talk a little about this subject"
Train "Hammer", between Altdorf and Quarry
Henrik Gerber pushed his way into the Carriage which housed his "special guests". As the priority for this operation was on taking out whatever caused the magic storm they had to enlist the help of beings who were able to tackle the magical side of things. As the German magical abilities were still sub-par that had meant taking a clutch of Imperial mages – and some specialists who had taken down more than one mage during their careers. Experience with tunnel fighting also counted as this was not a specialty of German armed forces.
The latter group was comprised from some specialist from Germany and those dwarves which had enlisted in the Landwehr anyway. As "Hammer" offered facilities mages could use he had been saddled with them.
That there were more beings in the carriages as had been originally planned for space was at a premium and a lot of the seating arrangements were tight, at least for most. One member of the special group had no problems with that as everybody gave him a wide berth.
Not ostentatiously aggressive he radiated such violence and the capability for massive carnage that nobody wanted to sit close to him. Given that he took most of a two men-seat by himself it would have been difficult anyway. The human that accompanied him looked at these doings with slight amusement.
Henrik was about to push through the aisle to reach Hannes Flammbach who led the mages when the dwarf addressed him: "When will we reach my doom humanling"
"Good afternoon Herr Gurnisson, Herr Jäger. We are about 200 Kilometers from the point where we have to disembark, and about 50 more through the woods. I do not know how many more stops we have to take for railblocks, so I cannot tell for sure. Best guess-another 48 hours to the disembarking"
"Ha, and I was told your trains are fast"
"You may try walking if you think that will be faster"
"Are you trying to say I cannot march fast humanling?"
"The Name is Major Gerber Demonslayer, and I am sure however fast you walk this train will still be faster"
"Gotrek, I am pretty sure there is enough of a fight where we are going-and we are going to miss it when you start one now."
"Hrrrn-you are right Felix-Major, thank you for the information"
"A pleasure Herr Gurnisson. Now I have to look for Meister Flammbach."
Hannes Flammbach was under the cupola which gave him free sight of his surroundings and which supposedly gave the mages better abilities to ply their trade. It also gave the huge bright order mage more space.
"Good morning Meister Flammbach. I wanted to contact you in person before, but this operation is short of nothing but time."
"Well met Major Gerber and no need to apologize. My colleagues and me were buy trying to get more information about this storm-so I would have been busy as well."
"Can you tell me more about it?"
"Not so much. It is a very raw application of magic-no finesse, just a release of the untamed powers of the warp. That fits with the theory that the beastmen are the cause-this is their style but with immense power behind this. I have seen some truly big magic undertakings, but this is the biggest I have seen personally in regards of the energy invested. How such magic might be wielded is beyond my ken."
"I understand that it is major sorcery and could have long time consequences-but why is it so important that we have to go after this first and are ordered to relieve the Quarry only after that?"
"It is a little bit difficult to explain to somebody who is not well versed in the ways of magic, so let me try to give an analogy. Imagine a mage sitting in a boat. For doing his magic he needs water, so he uses a pail to get water from the sea the boat is in. The time he needs to fill the bucket and pull in into the boat limits the amount of water he can use. Now our friend, the crazy mage of the beastmen has somehow drilled a hole into the boats walls and so has much more water he can use-but eventually it will sink the boat. And we are all sitting in it"
"That sounds quite dangerous."
"That´s so because it is dangerous. Some of my colleagues believe that if we do not stop this soon it might cause another Chaos Gate like the one at the pole-we should avoid that."
"Indeed. Do you need anything for you or your colleagues?"
"A first class coach would be fine and some dancing girls"
"I am fresh out of first-class coaches-but maybe I can ask the Slayer in your name for a dance?"
"Ah, thanks, but no….honestly now, your men do a good job looking after us, worry about something else Major."
Both men went about their business with chuckle-veterans both.
In another part of the train Kurt Müller found that he was not a veteran-not that he ever had aspirations to become one. He had never cared much about his Church but now found himself praying from time to time when he was not busy with something else. It was none of the prayers his priest had tried to teach him but one that came naturally to him.
"Dear God, if I fuck up good people die, please god-do not let me fail"
Kurt Müller was not a Veteran yet-but was very much on his way to become one.
Lager Middenheim, same date
Nathan Alpers was drinking coffee which was strong enough to raise the dead and laced with enough sugar that it resembled syrup while he made his way to the hangar. The long flight hours combined with being the only surviving officer had made sleep a precious commodity. If he had to keep this tempo of operations up he would need even stronger helpers. Even before he entered he heard a loud argument which seemed to be on the verge of becoming physical.
He found his Chief mechanic and a dwarf apprentice which they took in for local color having their argument in front of Storch 03, the plane of the late Lieutenant Marks. He wanted to make the afternoon supply drop with it while his men worked on the other Storch.
"You do not even understand what I did for you humanling"
"You do not understand what you did to our precious plane you stupid barbarian"
"Gentlemen….."
"Call me a barbarian again you wimpy humanling and I will…."
"Gentlemen, could you please…."
"Do what-you are just an apprentice here and…"
"Shut yer bloody traps you two-right now"
Both German airman and Dwarf apprentice looked at the pilot with open mouth, they had not heard him approach and the forceful blasting both received from the normally mild-mannered German was startling both.
"You will speak to me in sequence and politely or not at all. What is the matter with Storch 03-what have you done?"
"I have done.."
"This idiot has"
"In sequence Gentlemen. Airman Horst, you first if at all possible"
"Yes sir. Sir, as we discussed I have welded a clamp for the next delivery under the carriage of the plane. If we put rthe container it in and attach the rope with the hook it will break the load cleanly away if you snatch the cable at the castle. I have also increased the pressure of the fuel pump a little bit and reflashed some of the ROM-the engine should now do roughly 380 horsepower.
You are no longer conforming to the fine particle emission regulations, but I do not think anybody will complain. All was fine until this…"
"Stove it. Mechanics apprentice Steinier-what did you do"
"You want to load the plane to more than its maximum load and fly slow-even I know that is dangerous. So I have written the rune of flying into the Wing Spar-it will reduce your weight"
"You….this will reduce the spar stability"
"Airman-let Mr. Steinier finish if you please"
"I did screwed a plate below the spar before I did the runes-I did not touch the spar"
"An how do you know this is going to help"
"I have seen the rune many times with Makaissons`s airship. Without these runes they would never fly-it would be far too heavy"
"Apprentice Steinier-if you are a runesmith, why are you here as an apprentice"
"As I ..As I want to fly sometimes-in a machine of my own one day"
Both German managed to check their sniggers in time-thankfully.
"Well, if you want to fly so badly, I have a proposal for you for tonight-for tonight`s flight you –don`t look like that. As for now, let`s see what you two have wrought."
Having a look at the solid plate under the wing spar he did not think the structure had been compromised, but he had to agree that the plane felt strange. He had no better word-strange. What the hell, only one way to find out.
When he taxied to the runway he felt the changes to the engine-it was rougher, louder-and accelerated the plane better. The rune plate did not seem to do anything. When he had aligned himself with the wind he gave full throttle and then changed the propeller pitch for maximum acceleration. The overloaded plane took speed reluctantly. Normally willing to take off after about 50 meters he expected a takeoff run of at least 200 meters or more, so he was surprised to find the wheels hopping after 50 meters and the takeoff after less than 100.
The plane was still sluggish with mass-but from its speed of climb it was obvious that the weight of the plane was indeed reduced. He hoped that this would last, but if it did it would make these flights much easier.
Close to the Quarry, at night
Garek Brightfur was sitting alone at a small campfire, keeping company only with his thoughts, and these were not a nice company. The last assault had been a disaster and worse, a disaster that he did not learn anything from.
When the attacks failed before he could see why and either think his way around them or ask Asok for advice. The latter claimed to have seen many foreign ways to fight in visions and his ideas usually paid off, even if they seemed outlandish.
But now he had integrated all he knew into the last assault and had committed his best troops into the battle only to fail again. He did not have any ideas which would allow him to overcome the defenders and he had squandered his resources with the attacks.
He still had countless Beastmen for further attacks but would have to move them soon or they would starve. He had already send additional troops against to rein force the defense of Arok and his Lair as otherwise he could not support the warherd.
He had no more Giants and even if he had Garek suspected that they would suffer the same fate as before. Arok had told him clearly that he would not be able to conjure up new screamers for a while-too many of them had been grievously wounded the last days and so none were willing to fight at Gareks side. That in turn would bring the attention of the "4-shooters" back on his Beastmen-and even the normally fearless Children of Chaos found something which scared them badly.
Not that Garek could blame them there. He had just one card left to play-he could lead the next attack himself, pulling the Beasts up with him by example. The only drawback of that was that he would not likely reach the walls alive but it was the only thing left to try. And if he died, that was to be preferred over living in shame or being killed by his herd when they were finally fed up with him. Feeling better now that he had made a decision he stretched a little and really looked at his surroundings again, only to see eyes-red eyes looking at him from hip height.
His hand went slowly to the hilt of his axe when the owner of the eyes broke his silence. "Quiet, quiet oh mighty Garek. We have much to talk about you and us, yes yes" A furclad nightmare stepped forward into the low light provided by the fire.
"We only want to help help, we do"
"What do you want Skaven"
"The same as you mighty Doombull-kill the humans, yes yes"
Castle Wolfenfels, same time
Ernst Hermann looked through his Night-Vision Binox and was not enthused by the sight. He could see the Chaos army assembling outside of the range of his riflemen again, made more conspicuous by the absence of any ladder bearers. The infrared glow coming from the ditch indicated where they might be-away from the attention of his troops.
If they would attack in daylight he was sure that he could stop the assault with his men and the rifle company. But the rifle company was could not kill what it could not see. And the firepower his Germans could couple to night-vision devices could hurt the attackers but he doubted that he could kill enough to keep them from the walls.
If the flyboy would not come through-and he did not sound too confident-then this would be very very bloody.
Looking again he saw that the lines of the Chaos Warriors started to move. Using the deadliest weapon given to infantrymen he used his wireless to call the Storch already circling the castle.
Bang "If I were not born an idiot I would not be here" throw
Bang "If I were not born an idiot I would not be here" throw
Björn Steinier sat cross-legged on the bottom of the plane, secured just with a rope around his ample middle and the next seat. Besides him he had a box of starshell mortar grenades. He took out a grenade and placed it on the floor in front of him. When prompted by the Lt. he hit he nose of the shell strongly with a 2-kg stoning hammer. Citing "If I were not born an idiot I would not be here" for timing he threw the shell out of the open door. The shell, fooled into believing that it was shot out of a mortar engaged its time fuse before deploying a parachute and igniting.
They were even brighter and longer lasting than the 60 mm shells employed by the KSK before and showed the Chaos Warriors in stark relief. The flickering lights that appeared on the castles walls showed that the defenders were taking full advantage.
Ermine of Wolfenfels looked out of the window her room in the Donjon had which overlooked the battlefield. It was a sight-the manifold army of Chaos running forward to get to the walls, the defenders standing fast and killing them nearly as fast as they came, but Ermine had no eyes for all that. She tried to catch a glimpse of the plane which made the rounds over the battlefield, again and again dropping light into the darkness below.
She felt that somebody was watching over her, that he cared for her-for her, Ermine the woman and not the heiress to the Wolfenfels estates-it was a good feeling.
Asul Hellebore was swearing again-he had hopes for that attack and now it was on the verge of failing again. The illumination of the battlefield had allowed the thrice-damned defenders to open fire again as if it were happening in bright day.
Because they could approach closer the ladder carriers from the ditch they reached the wall in two places-far too few. The ladders went up and the first hot bloods were on them to prove themselves-just to drop from height when armored figures which were unhindered by the arrows shot at them pushed them down again. This would not work-he gave the signal for retreat.
His only option now was the cannon-it had better not fail or he would be lucky just being killed by Archaron the next time he contacted him.
Train Hammer, Between Altdorf and Middenheim, 36 hours later
The Armored Train was screeching to a halt at the point closest to the source of the storm. Henrik Gerber opened the cover above him and stood on the elevated seat to gain height. Looking through the binoculars that he had "inherited" from the German Navy he scanned the treeline to both sides of the train-so far nothing. He had chosen this exact spot for disembarkation as there was some more open ground here-it kept surprises a little farther away.
Seeing nothing which might throw a wrench in his plans and hearing no reports to the contrary he pushed the "To talk" button on his headset.
"Kaiserliche-deploy as per plan"
At several places along the train heavy armored ramps clanked down on the ground and Soldiers fanned out in well-practiced movements. As they had to secure a larger perimeter this time the Landwehr also deployed their "escort tanks".
With rumbling diesel engines the tanks rotated 90 degrees on their special carriages and drove down the ramps provided for this purpose. In order to give the Empire tanks to fight which would not be too threatening if falling into the wrong hands KMW had transplanted a "Puma" Turret to a M113 chassis which was lightly up armored.
Its 30 mm autocannon and the "Spike" missiles were deadly for all the Empires foes-and the low weight of the tank was a boon on the bad roads and light bridges the Empire had. Taking positions around the clearing they made a railhead for unloading the real threat to the Children of Chaos.
The sound of Hammer and its escorts was totally drowned out when 50 Leopard 2A8 tanks, nearly a 100 Marder and Puma IFV and numerous other combat vehicles started their engines and deployed for combat.
So far most battles between German or allied forces had been, by the standards of old Earth, small affairs in which rarely more than a company worth of tanks had been employed if at all. As they had be mobilized for the exercises anyway, the threat was serious and the Reiksbund wanted to send a message they had send the "A" team.
The Tank Battalion, the Mechanized Infantry and the artillery units had a combined horsepower of over 180000 hp, more than any battleship ever build. They sported armor that practically no weapon on this world could pierce and enough firepower to flatten any City in mere hours.
So under a bruise colored sky which crackled black lightning an armored force with no equal on this world was about to show war to this world for real-the time for skirmishes was over.
Henrik Gerber watched the unloading which looked like total chaos and was in reality only one and a half step from that, commence while keeping an eye on the woods. Compared to the German woods that he knew-practically all of them artificial or at least farmed upon since a long time-the Great Forest seemed primeval, dark and chaotic.
He could see nothing, but the Chatter in his headpiece indicated that there was "something" in the woods, actually several large groups of somethings-and they were getting closer by the minute.
He dropped back into his command cubicle where laptop computers shared place with map tables and a huge mage. From the reports his staff had aggregated a picture-what seemed like a warherd of many thousand beastmen had assembled at the edge of the forest, waiting for the allied soldiers to enter their realm.
""Wacht Actual for Hammer actual"
"I hear you Oberst Stein"
"It seems like the enemy is playing a little coy-I would like to send him an invitation he cannot refuse. Please execute a fire mission on the Wood between coordinates'…"
"Yes Sir"
It took less than a minute before the trains heavy guns started to throw death at the Beastmen in 50 kg sizes packages.
Leopard 2A8 Tank, same place and time
Uli Stoiber watched the beastmen emerging from the Forest. He did not know what battle plan the beasts had before they got their wake-up call from Hammer, but it was gone now. You still could not fault the warherds aggressiveness and courage, instead of dropping deeper into the Forest they were closing with their enemies as quickly as they could.
"Gunner, engage targets in our zone independently. Loader, load HE"
"HE up" was accompanied by the heavy clunk of the closing gun breech.
"Engaging infantry". The gunner lasered one of the closer groups of beastmen. The range and speed was fed into the computer which gave a pointer into the sight. Matching his barrel to that pointer the gunner shouted "On the way" before engaging the trigger.
The gun barrel recoiled violently before ejecting the base of the cartridge. The loader automatically reloaded the next HE round while the gunner saw the results of his handiwork.
The shell was stabilized by fins after leaving the barrel. At a speed of more than a thousand meters a second it did not take long to reach its intended target, but the time fuze was precise enough that it detonated the shell within 5 meters of the intended spot.
The fragments from the DM 11 shell were lethal out to 80 meters and were ripping hideous wounds in the beastmen. Combined with more than 20 other shells this salvo and the two that followed it took the heart out of the attack. Uli Stoiber saw the milling survivors which tried to get over the shock on the monitor of his remote weapon station. He did not intend to let them make up their mind and depressed the trigger for the 40 mm launcher. The grenades reached outwards in seemingly lazy arcs and the detonations also were unremarkable compared to the mighty 120 mm HE shells-but all these launchers were putting out several hundred shells per minute. And all of that was on top of the carnage wrought by the 20 and 30 mm autocannons from the IFV`s. Sooner or later the Warhammer World armies would learn not to bunch up and try to fight in close formation-this one would not be holding any lessons on that though. You have to be alive to teach.
It was probably the most one-sided battle in the history of the Warhammer World so far, with a totally wiped out Beastmen army one the one side and exactly zero losses on the other one.
It would not last.
Castle Wolfenfels, Great Forest, same time
Sergeant Bascoviks was lying half naked on his chest and was sweating like a hog. He was doing this not in a nice bed but lying in a small tunnel he was digging like mad. Granted, thing could be worse. The Germans brought electric lamps and fans into a business which would be much worse otherwise for lack of ventilation.
Having a laser for direction and distance also helped immensely, as did lightweight strong ropes which were used to pull the overburden back into the main tunnel. When Count Heinrich had confided that there was a escape tunnel from the castle he had astonished several long-time members of his household who did not know of it. It`s terminus was too close to the Chaos camp to be of any use for escape or attack, but it offered a starting point for a countertunnel to the ditch which was approaching the castle at high speed.
All of the technical help did not make the Sergeants workload any easier-he just progressed faster than he would have done without them. He was rotated out after 20 minutes like all the other members of the digging team.
Ditching cold water over his upper body to cool down and to get rid of the grime he was approached by the Lt. "So, how is progress"
"We got another 10 meters done by now Lt. We need additional boards-the loam will not be stable without some support, but so far we have no water."
"The boards you can have, we just dismantle the floor of the assembly hall. But how soon can you finish?"
"Day after tomorrow I would say"
"That is cutting it close, by that time they should be in place. Hope the walls are good for a couple of hits."
"We cannot accelerate the digging any more than we already do. It would be a good idea to prepare for a breech."
"Fuck this-we`ll see what we can do about it. You go on digging, I continue to demolish the castle…."
